What are the Types of Brain Injuries?

Human Brain Injury Anatomy

X-ray image of the brain computed tomography

The brain weighs a lot, at least two to five pounds in some cases. It consists of a gray, jelly-like substance, called cerebrospinal fluid. The cerebrospinal fluid contains millions of microscopic fibers. Your brain sends electrically charged neurochemical signals. They travel through the axonal-dendric connections. These are commonly referred to as synapses.

If a jolt or strike impact human brain tissue, your axonal-dendric connections could break apart. Or they may become severely damaged. Here, Michael Ehline tells us all what we need to know to identify and treat a brain injury.

Most Common Causes of Brain Damage

Vehicular accidents involving passenger automobiles are the biggest cause of skull, head and brain injuries. Harm can happen due to blow or strike to the head. And this could be an impact from falling off a bicycle and hitting the asphalt with force. Or it could be from a spill on a motorcycle.

Often it results from crashing into a windshield during a car accident. Even without an impact, the G-forces of an impact can cause your brain to go from sudden acceleration to sudden deceleration. And this is exactly what occurs in a whiplash event.

So even without blunt trauma to your head, you can still suffer a head injury. In fact, a lot of brain injuries are directly related to tearing of the brain. So they remain unrelated to a hit on the head. The whiplash event can cause the brain to bleed. In fact, it can create bruising and twisting of brain matter. And all this could happen during the impact, or later as the brain matter and tissue swell. Afterward, you think you’re fine, but then you’re not.

What are the Parts of the Brain?

What are the Cerebellum, Cortex and Brain Stem?

Science has discovered that your brain consists of three major organs.

Although your skull and the fluid therein helps protect your brain, the cranium is not extremely thick and unpadded on the inside. In fact, just the opposite remains true. The inside of your cranium has internal ribs with bony structures.

So if a sudden back and forth or side to side movement happens, your brain can bang or collide into the skull’s ribbing. Depending upon the how the jolting event took place, it could ruin lives. Also, bruised lobes might sustain long-term damage.

What are Some Aspects of the Brain?

The Cortex Controls The Majority of Thought

Connected to these lobes is the internal cortex. This tender area in the middle of your brain controls the majority of thoughts and analysis. Particularly pertinent, four lobes travel to your cortex, along with two hemispheres: the right and the left.

These lobes can be damaged from intentional, voluntary activities like mixed martial arts. Or they may be from unintentional events like motor vehicle collisions.

Left Brain is What Helps You Write, Read and Calculate Numbers.

Your left hemisphere is typically the most dominant portion of your brain. Mainly it controls your ability to talk, read, write, or do mathematical calculations.

The right side of your brain is responsible for visual-spatial functions like musical rhythm. It is also responsible for the ability to draw, and other visual memories associated with computing, programming and drawing things.

Frontal Lobe is Number One Injury From Car Crashes.

Your frontal lobe is often the one injured from motor vehicle accidents. Most of all, this is due to most crashes being rear-enders. So this is what results in the front and rear cars pushing forward with force and stopping rapidly. Hence, this banging and snapping effect can drive an internal impact right into the front of your skull. Furthermore, this holds true regardless of whether or not the head itself makes contact with an immovable, external object.

Frontal Lobe is About Personality and Emotions.

The frontal lobe is the part of the body which for controls emotions and characteristics such as your very personality. It is easy to see how a belted occupant in the forward vehicle can sustain a bad injury that alters his or her personality and harms their emotional health.

This remains another reason why people in any vehicle wreck should seek medical care fast. You must rule out brain tears or bruised lobes at a minimum.

Traumatic Brain Injury.

Traumatic brain injury (“TBI”) may significantly cause damages one’s cognitive, physical, mental and psychological skills. Physical deficits can include ambulation, loss of balance, coordination, fine motor skills, strength, and endurance. Cognitive deficits of language and communication, information processing, memory, and loss of perceptual skills are common.
Psychological status often changes as well. People with TBI frequently encounter adjustments to disability issues. What we do at Ehline Law Firm includes getting money to help the newly disabled transition.

Brain injuries can occur in many ways.

TBI typically results from accidents in which the head strikes an object. This is the most common type of traumatic brain injury. However, others, such as those caused by insufficient oxygen, poisoning, or infection, can cause similar deficits. Attorneys need to pin down who caused this exposure and why. This process includes finding the liable parties.

What is an Anoxic Brain Injury?

An anoxic brain injury means the patient will have interrupted blood flow to and from the brain. Anoxic brain injuries are sometimes caused by a lack of oxygen to your brain. These circumstances include drowning, swelling or bleeding of the brain tissues. These are typical of side to side impacts so often associated with impacts to a person’s head. This results in risk to the patient.

What is a Contrecoup Injury?

Contrecoup injuries take place as a result of the jarring side to side impact. These types of injuries strike people walking in public cross-walks. In some cases, these pedestrians are struck by the front end of an oncoming car. This internal jarring causes the brain to propel against both sides of your skull. The brain rebounds and crashes into the opposite sides of the cranium. A contrecoup injury is the ultimate result of exactly this type of event.

What is an Epidural Hematoma

An epidural hematoma is from a blood clot forming between your skull and the inner, upper lining of your brain known as your “dura.” A blood clot in that area of your head causes many pressure changes in your brain. This can result in the medical necessity of emergency surgery to effectuate emergency repairs and eliminate the clotting. This is a common injury a senior will suffer as a patient in hospitalized environments. In fact, this can often be the nexus of an elder abuse lawsuit. Care providers can often mitigate or eliminate the risks of clotting in many dependent patients.

What is a Contusion or Concussion?

Contusions and concussions take place when your external skull, and brain bruises. This is usually a result of the brain hitting and impacting on the inside of your cranium. This type of injury creates many symptoms. These can range from dizziness, seeing stars, mild headaches, severe headaches, loss, or lack of memory and loss of concentration.

A simple concussion can even create lifetime consequences that could require lifetime medical care. An example would be a helmeted motorcyclist who falls from his bike. He slams his head into the curb, breaking open his padded helmet. Although he may survive, the impact could still be enough to damage the brain. This is also the case with bad sports injuries like those common in boxing and the hard tackles of pro-U.S. football.

As a general rule, if you are struck in the head, see stars, or feel vertigo, stabilize yourself, and get to the hospital. You must mitigate your injuries to the best of your abilities. Act reasonably and seek professional help. Rule out things like potential blood clots that could kill you.

What is a Diffuse Axonal Injury (DAI)?

Diffuse Axonal Injury is a brain injury associated most closely with the rotation and disruption of your brain within the cranium. This can cut away, shear or sever the brain axons, which are connecting nerve fibers. Damage such as this is typically difficult to analyze. It is also accompanied by microscopic tears that are difficult to locate from the get go.

If doctors diagnose your case as a “mild brain injury” you may notice that thus the wounds heal over time. But often, a DAI results in permanent disabilities from loss of consciousness to lifetime coma. Eventually, a fatality could be the nexus of a future wrongful death claim in civil court and even a murder case in criminal court.

Currently, medical science has not discovered a methodology to treat diffuse axonal injuries. But medical experts have observed in some studies that the damage to axons occurs in the first 12 to 24 hours after the head impact. Many are confident that modern advances in science will be able to treat and/or slow down or stop the injury from progressing. These people believe that medications and other therapy and/or surgery will cure or minimize the damage. So far we have seen some success stories as science and medicine advances.

We hear remarkable stories about Scorpion Venom and other new treatments for damaged brains all the time. For now, however, an ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure. So be careful out there.

About Skull Fractures

Skull fractures often result from when the bone in your head, or cranium, fractures. This is similar to cracks in an eggshell. A skull fracture usually mends itself over time. This is often due to injury or damage to the fracture zone. This will typically require surgery to repair the fractured armor.

What is a Subdural Hematoma?

Causes of Subdural hematomas are blood clots forming in between your brain tissue and your dura. A hematoma can happen in many ways. It could arise slowly, over a few weeks or days. This is called a subdural hematoma. These often strike fast, known as an acute subdural hematoma. As with all sufferers of blood clots you could easily be a candidate for emergency surgery as a corrective measure. It is important to discuss these issues with your doctor to choose a course of action. These decisions often are life or death.